27 April 2012

DAREBIN COUNCIL, SEXUAL MINORITIES, IDAHO

In 2001 we moved from New South Wales to Victoria after buying a house in Preston, in the Darebin Council area in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

For a few years before moving to Melbourne we had been involved with a group we had been part of since its inception, InterSection, formed after Christine Bird had been commissioned by Sutherland Shire Council to investigate issues dealing with sexual minorities in that Council area.

InterSection led us on to investigations of homophobia in local government councils around New South Wales, and correspondence between our group and many of the councils resulted in some interesting conclusions and outcomes.

Conclusions were that most councils weren't even interesting in responding to enquiries about homophobia and sexual minorities in their areas, and a few councils responded positively and provided information as to how they were dealing with issues of discrimination, abuse, bullying and related issues.

The outcome was that the New South Wales government of the time - during the 1990s - rewrote the mandatory requirements of local governments to include sexual minorities as a special group with other groups such as ethnic minorities, Aboriginal requirements, disability groups and similar minority groups in our society.

When we arrived in Preston in 2001 we discovered that Darebin Council had been involved in a survey relating to ageing and other issues within the Council's area.

We wrote to the Council person who had been the signatory to a report and the feedback we obtained at the time seemed to promise progress that Darebin Council would address the issue of sexual minority problems within the Council area.

Over the years we have made several attempts to urge the Council to address various issues relating to sexual minorities, all to no avail.

For the first time, in 2011, after the Council election process had been changed by the Victorian Electoral Commission, and Darebin residents were able to elect other than the dominant ruling party to the Council, Darebin Council suddenly discovered that there was an annual international event which recognised homophobia around the world and is called IDAHO - International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia and is held on 17 May each year.

Darebin Council held its first event in 2011, which involved a seminar and morning tea for people from various groups and residents in the Council area to get together and suggest ways forward to address the many problems confronting the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and HIV (GLTH) members of the community in Darebin.

Some months later Council asked interested groups and individuals to contact Council with a view to setting up a committee to investigate and deal with issues in the GLTH communities.

In 2012 Darebin Council is holding a follow-up IDAHO to recognise the day and is having various events for the day.

Now it is possible to give Darebin Council some credit for acting at last on homophobia and related problems, but we, as InterSection and as Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, have been using whatever means were at our disposal to get some movement on these issues tears ago, to no avail.

We set up web pages to document progress - or otherwise - and what we see now is that Darebin Council, in keeping with so many other organisations, is re-inventing the wheel.

Our web pages are at InterSection, but the Darebin-specific pages commence at InterSection Part 4 and succeeding parts of the InterSection web pages.

Two issues with which we have been heavily involved in recent years relate to GLTH ageing and GLTH listings in Darebin libraries for young people discovering their sexuality and for older people who may still be living in the closet for fear of the consequences of being known to the public as "dykes", "poofters", "trannies" and other terms unacceptable to many people.

It is by now well known how the federal government outed people with changes to legislation on 1 July 2009 when many people were exposed after lifetimes of abuse from the community at large and over which the federal government ignored requests from us to grandfather certain of the clauses which were seen to be most harmful to us all. The homophobic members of the federal parliament - most of them, it seems - including the member for Batman, which covers most of the Darebin Council area, ignored our requests, but managed to grandfather other clauses of dramatic natures which they were busy introducing - increasing the ages before people would be able to receive pensions!

We are yet to see who the members of this committee are and what their connections are to the GLTH members of the community.

We are hoping it won't be another case of the farcical Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) inquiry into homophobia, discrimination, bullying and other GLTH issues faced by Jewish members of the community. JCCV received 5 submissions and the members of the committee were demanding secrecy of their identities which were only revealed on publication of the report. Since that date, all trace of any progress for the Jewish GLTH members of the community have vanished altogether.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Mannie
    I am a member of the Same Sex Attracted and Gender Diverse Advisory Committee you are referring to in your blog entry titled, DAREBIN COUNCIL, SEXUAL MINORITIES, IDAHO. I am a member because I nominated and fortunately my nomination was accepted. There is unfortunately just one male on the committee who identifies as gay and many more lesbians. We will do our best to represent broadly.

    I met you last year, 2011, at the IDAHO Forum event at Northcote Town Hall. You may remember the story about how the forum came about. In 2010 I sent an email to all Councillors at Darebin encouraging them to acknowledge IDAHO. A year later, 2011, Trent McCarthy hosted the Forum. A year later 2012, the Council has established a GLBTI Advisory Committee, is developing and Action Plan flying the Rainbow Flag and is hosting an evening of activities in recognition of the importance of IDAHO Day on 17 May at Northcote Town Hall. Some significant changes have come about in just two years that will benefit the broad and diverse GLBTI communities in the local Darebin area including GLBTI seniors.

    WE must celebrate success because homophobia and transphobia continue to exist and the only way to change perceptions is to work together for positive change.

    This is an excellent example of three different parties working together, collaborating, building alliances, 1. I am a resident, a member of the ALP, 2. Trent McCarthy is the local Greens Councillor and 3. Council Officers at Darebin working internally for change.

    As you know, real long-term change happens slowly and relies on timing. I hope to see some real, tangible outcomes roll out over the next 10 years for all GLBTI Darebin residents.

    Liz

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Mannie
    I am a member of the Same Sex Attracted and Gender Diverse Advisory Committee you are referring to in your blog entry titled, DAREBIN COUNCIL, SEXUAL MINORITIES, IDAHO. I am a member because I nominated and fortunately my nomination was accepted. There is unfortunately just one male on the committee who identifies as gay and many more lesbians. We will do our best to represent broadly.

    I met you last year, 2011, at the IDAHO Forum event at Northcote Town Hall. You may remember the story about how the forum came about. In 2010 I sent an email to all Councillors at Darebin encouraging them to acknowledge IDAHO. A year later, 2011, Trent McCarthy hosted the Forum. A year later 2012, the Council has established a GLBTI Advisory Committee, is developing and Action Plan flying the Rainbow Flag and is hosting an evening of activities in recognition of the importance of IDAHO Day on 17 May at Northcote Town Hall. Some significant changes have come about in just two years that will benefit the broad and diverse GLBTI communities in the local Darebin area including GLBTI seniors.

    WE must celebrate success because homophobia and transphobia continue to exist and the only way to change perceptions is to work together for positive change.

    This is an excellent example of three different parties working together, collaborating, building alliances, 1. I am a resident, a member of the ALP, 2. Trent McCarthy is the local Greens Councillor and 3. Council Officers at Darebin working internally for change.

    As you know, real long-term change happens slowly and relies on timing. I hope to see some real, tangible outcomes roll out over the next 10 years for all GLBTI Darebin residents.

    Liz

    ReplyDelete

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